Minnesota music scene remembers ’90s-era rock photographer

When Rolling Stone magazine gave him the assignment to shoot Nirvana at First Avenue in 1991, Brian Garrity was so excited he puked. And he kept puking, his friend remembered.

Like all great rock ‘n’ roll lensmen, though, the Minneapolis photographer still got the shots he needed, no matter how chaotic the situation turned.

“He knew it was a big-break kind of thing and was so nervous about it,” Garrity’s longtime friend, painter John Vieno, recalled. “But in the end, he just transformed and did really great work.”

Garrity and his work will be celebrated with a Feb. 1 memorial at the Hook & Ladder in Minneapolis. The 62-year-old photographer’s body was found in November under a bridge in south Minneapolis, where he had been living while dealing with alcoholism, and exposure to the cold is believed to be the cause of his death, family and friends said.

That sad demise should not offset the vibrant work Garrity did in the 1980s and 1990s documenting the Twin Cities music scene, said Vieno and other friends organizing this weekend’s tribute. His music photos — which nowadays look unusually specific to the fashion and feel of the era — were usually shot on black-and-white film and regularly featured in magazines including Alternative Press, Spin and Interview. Bands also frequently used his pictures for promotional purposes.

Among the artists Garrity most famously photographed are Babes in Toyland, Marilyn Manson, Radiohead, the Lemonheads’ Evan Dando, Hüsker Dü, PJ Harvey, the Offspring, Rancid and Garbage. Some of his best rock photos were showcased in “Pushed Beyond All Reasonable Limits: The Music Photography of Brian D. Garrity,” a 2023 book put out by punk/indie-centric publisher DiWulf.

“You can almost smell the sweat and beer looking at these photos,” said Dan Hobson of the Wisconsin punk band Killdozer in a blurb promoting the book.

“He was so passionate about music — and so personable, too — he was able to strike up a lot of friendships and gain a lot of trust from people,” Barbero said, recounting how many of the shoots her old band did with other photographers could often be uncomfortable. But not the sessions with Garrity.

“He was always respectful of us and relaxed about it. He put everybody at ease.”

Garrity’s mom, Barbara Ames, said she and Brian’s father, James, were artists by trade, and their son followed them into a creative lifestyle, creating Claymation and other films while growing up in Onalaska, Wis. (next to La Crosse). Among his other pursuits, he also wrote novels and stories and played music.

“He was just an artist from the time he was a little kid and always had that mindset,” recalled Ames.

Garrity’s interest in photographing musicians really started after he enrolled in the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He wound up living in a nearby house, dubbed the Last House on the Left, where many other MCAD students and musicians lived and partied.

Garrity also got into fashion photography and worked for many years doing advertising work for Target. When digital cameras took over much of professional photography in the 2000s, however, Garrity “just wasn’t able to make that transition,” Vieno said.

He struggled finding work and declined in health over the past decade. After being evicted last year from his apartment in the A-Mill Artist Lofts, Garrity became homeless and “just wasn’t willing or able to accept help from anybody,” Vieno said.

Still, his loved ones are emphasizing the positives, including the fact that his work will live on in the form of the DiWulf book and some other possible projects being considered.

“He worked on that book for like five years and was just thrilled when it came out,” said Garrity’s mom, who now has Brian’s ashes with her in an urn at her house in Naples, Fla. However, Ames was happy to recognize how much Minneapolis became her son’s home.

“I’ve heard from so many friends he had there how much he meant to them,” Ames said.

When: 5-9 p.m. Feb. 1.

Where: Hook & Ladder’s Zen Arcade, 3010 Minnehaha Av., Mpls.